that morning. “You looked like—”
Like what? What had she been going to say?
“My God!” he said to himself, in a whisper.
CHAPTER III
The Luffs
Delancey had missed his usual train, and the one after it; the people waiting on the platform were strangers to him, not those well-known faces he was accustomed to seeing six days a week. But they were ordinary, decent, comprehensible people; he felt a great good-will toward them; he felt the relief of one waking from a nightmare to familiar surroundings. And he felt, too, the vague terror that a nightmare leaves.
“Whew!” he said to himself. “That was a—very unpleasant experience. …But fantastic, of course.”
The word pleased him.
“Fantastic,” he repeated to himself, as he boarded the train.
It seemed to dispose in a thoroughly satisfactory fashion of poor Whitestone and all he had said, it gave to the scene in the birch glade an air of unreality. The real world was this, the train, the crowds, the Grand Central Station, the subway, his desk at the office, the amiable stenographer who worked for him when he needed her.
He did not need her this morning; his business was not brisk.
“I’m going to look around for something else,” he thought. “A regular job with a salary.”
He had mentioned this once or twice to Josephine, and she had protested.
“Oh, don’t, Shawe! It’s so nice for you to have your own business. I’d hate to think of your working for someone else—being at someone’s beck and call.”
Very generous, she was. He had his own bank account, in which she deposited a check the first of every month. She never asked what he did with it, and if he said he needed a bit more, for his business, she almost always gave it. Almost always. Sometimes, when he least expected it, she would make extraordinary accusations against him, would say she knew he wanted the money to spend on some other woman. …Of course, she had her faults, like everyone else. He had faults himself. But, with the exception of a little scene now and then. …Simply nerves. …She was a high-strung girl, poor Josephine. …Well, not exactly a girl, perhaps. She admitted to being five years older than he, and sometimes he had a suspicion that it was a bit more than that. When she waked in the morning, there was a look about her eyes…
He wished he had not thought of that. He always tried to avoid looking at her until she had removed her “night cream” and applied those “toning lotions” and so on.
Suddenly he felt rather sick.
“That damned cheese soufflé last night,” he thought. “I need a drink.”
He was very temperate by habit; he never drank in the morning; he could not remember ever wanting a drink as he did now. He opened a perfectly unimportant letter, frowned at it, and rose, with a purposeful air.
“I’ll have to see this man at once,” he observed, aloud, for the benefit of the stenographer, and taking his hat, went out of the office.
It did him good. He ordered another. Nearly eleven. If he was to get home for lunch, he ought to catch the 12:24. He didn’t want to get home for lunch. Well, nothing remarkable in that. Plenty of men he knew, men who appreciated their homes as much as he did, nevertheless liked to stop in town now and then. He might ring up Foster, or Duval. He might go to the club.
“No,” he decided. “Josephine was a bit upset this morning. I’d better go home, this time.”
Linney was waiting for him at the station, smart looking fellow in that uniform; the car, too, was one of the finest; these men with their shabby little coupes must envy him. There was a rush for the waiting taxis; never enough of them. One young man got left; he stood on the platform, with his bag beside him, and glanced at his watch.
“Hold on a moment Linney!” said Delancey, and leaning out of his car, addressed the stranger. “See here, going north? Perhaps I can give you a lift.”
He often did that, and liked to do it.
“Sorry, but I don’t know whether it’s north or not,” answered the stranger, “I’m going to Mrs. Luff’s—if you happen to know where that is.”
“That’s right on my way! Hop in!”
“Thanks!” said the stranger, gave his bag to Linney, and got in beside Delancey. He was a neat, fair-haired young fellow, slight, rather short, quietly dressed, quiet in voice, yet there was something about him which made Delancey anxious to impress him.
“Fine place the Luffs have,” he observed.
“Is it?” said the other politely.
“Yes. …They’re neighbors of ours, you know. Delancey, my name is. Shawe Delancey.”
“My name’s Acheson.”
“Acheson. …” Delancey repeated. “Yes. …Fine place the Luffs have. Quite an estate. Our place isn’t half the size, but my wife’s a great gardener. I wish you could see—”
He stopped, with an odd look on his ruddy face. The thought had entered his mind, and would not be banished, that he would not like this quiet young man to meet Josephine.
“Most men of my age have younger wives,” he thought. “Girls…”
Then he recalled that this was Josephine’s car, and that she was generous to him.
“She’s a fine-looking woman, too,” he thought. “And she knows how to dress. I mean to say, Mrs. Luff’s like a rag-bag, compared to Josephine.”
He liked Mrs. Luff very much, though; he greatly regretted that Josephine did not get on with her. When they had first come here, the Luffs had been remarkably nice, had invited them to dinner, had been friendly in a fashion he had never before encountered. With honest humility he admitted to himself that the Luffs were “a cut above him,” and above Josephine, too. Their way of living, their simplicity, their ease, the atmosphere of careless comfort in their house, seemed to him about the best thing there could be. He would have liked to live like them; he would have liked to be like them.
“Drive right up to the Luffs’ house, Linney,” he said.
For, after all, he had not quarreled with the Luffs; he didn’t even know exactly what had gone amiss between Josephine and Mrs. Luff. Whenever he met Luff, at the railway station, or on the train, they always chatted together. There was no reason why he should not take this young man to the door; and if he happened to see Mrs. Luff, well, he wouldn’t be sorry for a chance to say a few friendly words to her. That would be no offense against Josephine.
“Fact is,” he thought, “I believe Josephine’s sorry now. I believe she’d be glad of an excuse to patch things up with Mrs. Luff. She lets her nerves get the better of her.”
His heart quickened a little, to see Mrs. Luff on the terrace. He had always admired that terrace, with the striped awning over it, the comfortable chairs and little tables.
“Suppose
